


high school never ends

by Milletrye



Category: Detentionaire (Cartoon)
Genre: Depression, Gen, not as much as the other fics though, tbh this is really just me spilling some of my VPV backstory headcanons lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-12
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-06 14:13:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26420188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Milletrye/pseuds/Milletrye
Summary: When Goob's father Darren revisits his old high school for a parent-teacher conference, his plan is simple enough: keep a low profile and ignore whatever former classmates he might run into. But as it turns out, almost all the other parents attendingarethose very classmates... and when things aren't exactly getting less weird from there, Darren is starting to doubt that it's all a coincidence. Something is definitely going on at A Nigma High, but the question is what.And what he's supposed to do about it.Takes place sometime during season two, but also includes spoilers for the rest of the show.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 4





	high school never ends

_I sure haven't missed this place._

Darren Goober sighed as he brought his car to a stop in the parking lot of A Nigma High, the school that his son, Magnus, attended. And the school he himself had attended, just about twenty-five years ago. It was the first time he'd been here since then - he didn't associate that many fond memories with that particular time in his life, so he had let his wife handle the parent-teacher conferences up to now. But Laura had an afternoon shift today, on this rare occasion Darren himself had some time off from his job, which was why he'd decided to take the risk. No, his reputation hadn't been that great back in the day, but it wasn't like he was going to reunite with the rest of his entire class, right? Most of the other students' parents probably wouldn't even know who he was.

Still, Darren frowned as he made his way over to the school's entrance. There were plenty of cars in the parking lot already, pretty much all of them looking a whole lot more proper than his shitty old Ford he'd owned for more than a decade now. Of course they did; after all, it wasn't a secret that A Nigma High was mostly a school for people much better off than his family. The only reason Darren and Magnus - Goob, as he preferred to be called, Darren knew - got to go here was a technicality. A scholarship completely accounted for by the school itself just because his father had died while Darren had still been a student here. Why they cared so much about his family to do this for them was anyone's guess, but he wasn't going to tempt fate to find out. He should be glad about it, honestly, and most days, he was.

Not today, however. His time at A Nigma really hadn't been all that great, especially after Kenneth had died. He'd had to deal with negative thoughts before that event already, but afterwards, those had only ended up getting a whole lot worse. His grades had slipped quite a bit because of all that, and his moody and distant behavior hadn't exactly allowed him to have a lot of friends either.

 _Better one good friend than a dozen shallow ones_ , Darren thought as he briefly stopped to glance up at the school's front walls. _1945_ , the numbers above the entrance doors read, even after all this time, and he couldn't help but wince a little as the memories resurfaced. Memories that he hadn't recalled in decades; that he hadn't even known he still had inside himself.

_"Do you know what that number means?", she'd asked him one day, when she'd made sure nobody else was around to hear._

_He'd only shrugged. "It's a year, I guess."_

_"But not the year they founded the school!", she'd replied in a lower voice, barely containing her excitement. And shoving one of the books from the library right into his face. "That was in the 1890s, see? In 1945, the school's already been around for_ ages _."_

_"So?" It wasn't that he'd minded these conversations; these moments where she'd claim to have uncovered yet another strange mystery about A Nigma High. He just hadn't been nearly as invested as her. "Just ask one of the teachers, then. Or Principal Wurst."_

_Then she'd scoffed and pushed one of her streaks of ginger hair out of her face in exasperation. "As if they'll tell me anything. But Luke and I are gonna figure it out, you'll see."_

Darren shook his head, shaking off the memory all the same. Luke… that was another topic he hadn't dwelled on in years, almost as if a part of his brain had decided to suppress it forever. Or until the sight of this building would remind him of it, anyway. But it was also something he didn't actually want to think about now, so instead, he took a deep breath and headed into the school he hadn't visited in so long.

It only took him a few steps to feel like a student again - some modern technology aside, nothing in this building seemed to have changed at all. Everything still looked like back in the day; the hallways and lockers and even some old spray paint he remembered his classmates putting there. As Darren headed to the gym, the place everyone would gather today when they weren't in a meeting with a teacher, he found it awfully easy to imagine one of his old bullies sneaking up on him.

"My, if that isn't Darren Goober. Still alive after all?"

 _Speaking of_ , Darren thought, freezing as he heard the voice behind him, still familiar after all these years. He wasn't terrified, exactly - even back in school, he'd mostly just been fed up during the last couple years -, so when he turned around, all he had to do was make sure he didn't sound too aggressive. No need to make matters worse after all.

Sure enough, the person standing there was someone he very well recognized. Ginger hair, pointed chin, and an outfit obviously meant to impress with how immaculately proper it was. Jermaine Dexter, no doubt.

Darren had had to endure a lot of shitty comments from him back in the day, but he couldn't let that get to him now. They were adults, after all. Parents, even, since Jermaine was obviously here for the same reason as him. "Jermaine", he greeted his old classmate with a nod, noticing the surprise in that guy's eyes because of how calm he managed to sound. "Looks like you were mature enough to leave your glam rock phase behind after we graduated. Just a shame you don't sound that way."

With that, Darren turned around again to continue his walk to the gym, not waiting for a reaction. Impressively, he didn't actually get one either, neither verbally nor physically. He couldn't help but smile at that, if only for a brief moment. If Jermaine was here too, who knew who else he was going to run into.

As he approached the large hall that served as A Nigma's gym, Darren started hearing voices. They became louder and louder as he walked, and he did his best to attempt to recognize the speakers, but that was virtually impossible with all those sounds blending together.

When he stepped into the gym, however, it wasn't all that hard anymore.

Darren was so startled by the sight he was met with that he almost walked back out again, but of course, he couldn't exactly do that. Instead, he just kept standing in the entrance, not even really reacting to Jermaine as his old classmate purposefully pushed past him. The people in the gym… he knew them. With a few laughable exceptions, he knew them all.

Sure, they were all more than two decades older these days, but that didn't stop him from matching these people to names. Some of them were faces he saw on the news a lot anyway, like Ace von Chillstein or Dash Moneranian, but there were also people he recognized despite not having seen them in ages. Celeste Elliott, who'd led the local clique of hippies back in the day, Marcus Carb and the rest of the old football team… and of course, Ruben Xavier, talking to his own former cliquemates as if nothing had changed at all. Which was actually true, kind of, because as far as Darren knew, Gillian Silver and Victor Stern were as much involved in the law business as Ruben was. All of them looked the part, Darren's own plain shirt paling compared to how overdressed they were for something as semi-casual as a talk with some teachers. More than anything, they seemed as if they were ready to hold a trial right there.

 _The poor teachers_ , Darren thought, relieved that none of them - or anyone else, really - were paying any attention to him.

At least until someone put an arm around his shoulders and an all too familiar voice was way too uncomfortably close to his ear.

"Dash Moneranian, hi", it said, seemingly not talking to him but to the air - or rather, to the various people whose attention they had by now. "I'm here with the latest person to enter this gym, and what a person it is! Ladies and gentlemen, this is Darren Goober, live with me here at A Nigma High. Darren, how does it feel to be back after all these years? Who did you miss the most? And, the question I'm sure everyone is _dying_ to know the answer to - yes, that was a pun, I'm hilarious, I know -, did you really manage to stay alive all this time? Are you still as miserable as we all remember?"

"At least _you're_ still as annoying as I remember", Darren countered, trying to somehow get rid of Dash's arm. As much as he'd intended to keep a low profile, it was awfully easy to get fed up with this guy.

"Ouch", his former classmate mocked him, but Darren heard something else as well.

_"Make sure not to show that part later", a younger Dash said in his mind, as clearly as if it was happening right now. Not to him, of course, but to the guy who'd been his cameraman back in the day. Luke, of all people._

Darren stepped forward again, shaking off both Dash and the memory in the process. Why was this happening? Why was he remembering all these things he hadn't bothered with for decades now? After all, dwelling on old memories was one of his brain's favorite activities, for better or worse.

His instincts told him to just head back home, away from these decades-old thoughts and these people who evidently couldn't stand him even nowadays, but this was still a school event. He couldn't just leave now.

Instead, Darren made his way over to one of the bar tables placed all around the gym, one of the unoccupied ones away from most of the crowd. Were the others staring at him as he did? Probably. But he decided not to pay any attention to them, because that'd just make everything worse than it already was.

Only when he'd arrived at his destined table and wasn't immediately approached by anyone again did he dare take another look around. Impressively enough, everyone seemed to have forgotten about him already, probably because Dash had found someone else to get on the nerves of. Nobody even shot him another glance at this point, so Darren allowed himself to relax a little again. Even the pointless drama was just like back in their high school days.

Now that he had a little more time, Darren tried paying closer attention to the other parents once more. And it was true, the more he looked around and actually counted these people, the more he realized that they really were his former classmates. Almost every single one of them, with just a handful of people he didn't know at all. That couldn't be a coincidence, could it?

Another memory resurfaced at that thought, another one he hadn't thought of in decades.

_"Luke showed me his dad's yearbook the other day", she'd told him before, so many years ago. "Wanna know something crazy?"_

_"Sure", he'd said. As little as he'd actually been involved in Veronica's research, and as little as he'd believed in any kind of greater scheme, her theories had always been interesting, at least._

_"Well, take a look." With that, she'd presented him two pictures; photographs Luke had taken with his polaroid. Photographs_ of _photographs, in fact, because these had been pictures of yearbook pages. The pages that showed an entire grade - theirs and that of Luke's dad._

_And almost everyone on these images had looked alike._

That revelation snapped him out of the memory and brought him back to the present again, and Darren couldn't help taking an uncertain glance around. He had never found the time to look at his son's yearbooks, but now he was kind of scared to change that. Was this what he would find in there? Near-perfect look-alikes of his former classmates, give or take a few exceptions?

Veronica would have helped him make sense of it all, he knew. But she wasn't here, of course not - as that strange part of his brain reminded him now, it was impossible for her to have children.

Because they'd probably have had children _together_ if she hadn't decided to dedicate her life to the conspiracy.

It was a weird thing to think about, now that he was doing just that. He loved his wife - of course he did -, and of course, he loved Magnus as well. The kid was the best that had ever happened to him. But to think that he'd never have met Laura, that Magnus wouldn't even have existed, if he'd never parted ways with _her_ … it was strange, to say the least. So many things would have been different if she hadn't decided to focus on her work.

 _If Luke hadn't vanished without a trace and she hadn't decided to blame MWF_ , something whispered in the back of his mind.

"Why the long face?", someone cut off his thoughts before he could dwell on them further, and Darren had to blink a few times until he realized who was standing at his very table now, one arm casually propped up on it and two glasses of water between them.

Hollywood movie star Ace von Chillstein.

He hadn't been a movie star during high school, of course. Not even close, actually - he'd been a member of the hippie clique and had only really taken up acting for some environmental campaign during 11th grade or so. But he _was_ a celebrity now, so Darren found it hard to ignore that fact as he tried keeping up the conversation.

"Just reminiscing, I guess", he replied to Ace's question, kind of warily eyeing their surroundings. Sure, Ace hadn't been a jerk back in the day, but even he hadn't bothered to ever talk to Darren. And he'd had enough shitty encounters today already, so it was better to brace himself, really.

"High school never ends, huh?" Ace sounded so amused, so _genuine_ , that for a moment, Darren had no idea what to say. But Ace did him the favor of continuing. "It's a neat little song, don't you think? I figured you'd know it, since you've always been into punk rock and all."

Darren only stared at him some more. _High School Never Ends_ \- yeah, he knew that song, just as well as he knew another one by the same band, _1985_. That one was still one of his favorites; after all, 1985 was pretty much the last year things had been mostly alright for him for a long time. With his dad dying in 1986, everything had become kind of a mess for another ten years after that before he had managed to somewhat put himself back together.

But what did Ace care about that?

"Sorry", his former classmate said with a little chuckle. "I know you didn't get the best welcome earlier. But you know Dash. He hasn't changed a bit, I can assure you as much from all the times our jobs have made us work together."

Darren nodded, managing a weak smile. Maybe Ace really was just attempting smalltalk after all. "This feels more like a class reunion than anything", he admitted.

"Right? I guess we kind of turned these parent-teacher conferences into one the second we noticed we all happened to have kids going here. With a few additions regarding other people's parents, of course." Ace paused for a moment, looking at Darren in a weirdly sympathetic way. "When you didn't show up those first several times, well… you can guess what we were all assuming. Especially since pretty much everyone else from the old gang was there. But I'm glad you're still around after all."

Once again, Darren hesitated a little. Hearing such words from someone who wasn't part of his family, who wasn't even really his friend… it was weird, to say the least. But he also wasn't getting the feeling that Ace was making fun of him. "Thanks", he managed eventually, taking a sip of the water he'd been offered. "And congratulations. On your whole career and all."

Ace waved it off. "Who'd have thought, huh? Some hippie kid becoming an A-list actor. But don't worry, I'm pretty sure I'm the exception here. Most of our old classmates pretty much ended up where you'd think they would."

"Yeah", Darren figured, glancing at Ruben Xavier's table again. It wasn't happening right now, but still, in his mind, a younger Ruben glared back at him, an expression that made him remember just how little they'd gotten along back then. To think that these days, their sons were the best of friends…

Impressively, Ace didn't ask him about his own job, but instead, it was almost like he'd read his thoughts just now. "Although it really is kind of funny that we all wound up with kids at roughly the same time. You too, right? Otherwise you wouldn't have much of a reason to be here."

Darren nodded, and this time, he really couldn't help but smile. "Yeah, me too. The people at school mostly just know him as Goob. He's a good kid."

"I'm sure he is", Ace replied. "I can say the same about Brad as well. Although sometimes the whole deal about having a movie star dad is getting a little to his head. I'm flattered he wants to be like me in that regard, but he really shouldn't feel pressured to. Especially since turning into your parent is supposed to be every kid's nightmare."

Ace grinned at that, but Darren did the opposite. "It's the parent's nightmare too, sometimes", he admitted, only realizing he'd said it out loud when Ace mirrored his frowning expression.

"Sorry", he said for the second time in minutes, immediately making Darren feel bad about that. "I should have figured. Sucks that your family has to deal with that kinda stuff."

Darren blinked at him. "You believe me?", he couldn't help but ask. "Last time I checked, nobody here took me seriously."

Ace grimaced. "We were kids, Darren. We - well, most of us - have become a bit wiser since then. Especially when you have Veronica talking some sense into you."

It took Darren a moment to register those words. _Veronica_ , it echoed inside his head, his heart beating far too fast all of a sudden. "You've talked?", he managed. "After high school, I mean."

This time, the reaction he got was laughter, which immediately confused him again. Had he said something wrong?

"You really don't know?", Ace asked him once he'd finally caught his breath, although he still sounded awfully amused. "Veronica is A Nigma High's vice principal these days."

All Darren could do was stare at him. That couldn't be true, could it? Because if it was, that would mean...

"You're wondering if she's here, aren't you?", Ace said with a knowing smile, not waiting for a response. "She is, actually. I've already talked to her earlier."

"This is insane", Darren muttered. Veronica - _his_ Veronica - was here? In this building, this school they'd attended together all those years ago? This school she had always believed to be part of some major conspiracy?

Maybe her research after graduation had actually been successful... maybe she'd give him some answers to her old questions today. Answers he honestly wasn't so sure he wanted anymore.

"Excuse me for a moment", he told Ace, leaving his former classmate standing by the table as he made his way outside the gym again. He wasn't sure where he was heading exactly, but maybe just walking around was already going to do the trick. Anything to get his mind off of all the scenarios that could happen if - when - he saw Veronica again.

But of course, that didn't exactly work. All that happened was that more and more memories pushed their way back into his conscious awareness, more and more things she'd said that he'd had no idea he still remembered at all.

_"I wonder what the tazelwurm's purpose is. Why is it here, at a school? Why doesn't it choose to live somewhere else?"_

_"I've looked at the yearbooks again. Ever since everyone's parents went to school here, the principal was a certain R. Wurst. Do you think it's the same guy? Or just members of the same family?"_

_"Actually, 1945 was just a few years before your dad and the others went here. And just a single year before the first Wurst guy became principal. That_ must _be related somehow, right?"_

"Darren?"

He froze. That last voice - it sounded just like the other ones, but also different. Older.

Real.

Sure enough, there was a woman standing in the hallway he'd stepped into, with a green blouse and skirt and ginger hair falling all the way down to her waist. She could have been another parent, of course, but he knew she wasn't. The honest emotion in her voice had made that obvious enough.

"Veronica", he whispered, unable to manage anything louder than that. She looked so much more gorgeous than back in the day - but at the same time, also a lot more mature. More… experienced, really.

Maybe she'd uncovered some things after all.

"Victoria, these days", she replied with the hint of a smile. "But you can still use my first name, of course." Her voice, too, sounded different, carrying the silky smoothness of some sort of movie villain. Not that she was one, obviously.

Although it became a little less obvious with what she said next.

"I'm sure you have plenty of questions. But we can't talk. Not here."

"What?", he asked. "Why not?"

"It isn't safe." With that, Veronica took his hand, virtually dragging him along as she walked off again. He didn't dare say anything, the increasing tension in his gut preventing him from doing so.

Soon enough, they'd reached one of their old classrooms, and Darren couldn't help gulping a little when Veronica locked the door behind them. She walked up to the teacher's desk, leaned against it while crossing her arms, and sighed.

"Sorry about that. But I can't let them find out about this."

"Them?", he echoed, mimicking her pose with one of the tables meant for students. "Is this still about that old conspiracy?"

Veronica scoffed. "It's far from old, Darren. If anything, things are only _starting_ to get serious." When he didn't know what to reply, she added, "But yes, them. Everyone actively involved in all of this. Including some old classmates of ours."

He opened his mouth, but it was easy enough for her to guess what kind of question he had on his mind.

"You know, Ruben. Victor. Gillian. The people whose job it is to make sure nobody finds out about any of this."

 _The lawyers and the judge_ , Darren realized, the uneasy feeling in his gut all but going away. "So you were onto something after all?", he asked in an instinctively lower volume.

She grimaced. "Yeah, me and Luke." With a look he didn't know how to read, she continued, "You remember him, don't you?"

"Of course." Before he knew it, he'd walked over to her and put an arm around her body. No, they weren't dating anymore - they hadn't been for a long time -, but that didn't mean he couldn't show his support regarding a topic that he knew had never stopped haunting her. "I haven't been thinking much about him, not until I came back here today… but I do remember. Of course I do."

"Of course", she agreed, her voice sounding a little strange, but she wasn't fighting his embrace. They both stayed silent for a moment, thinking back to their old classmate. The kid who'd helped Veronica with her investigations and had virtually vanished into thin air one day; the kid Veronica had claimed had been "disposed of" for coming too close to the truth about everything. Darren hadn't known if she'd just been trying to latch onto _some_ sort of explanation, conveniently blaming the conspiracy she'd insisted on being a thing, but of course, he had supported her through her loss anyway.

Now that she'd brought Luke up, Darren couldn't help but ask her a question. "Did you manage to find out more about him? About what happened?"

"No", Veronica replied immediately, a strange bitterness leaking into her voice. "No, it's still like he never existed at all. Not even his _father_ gave me any kind of reaction… but I shouldn't be surprised about that, really."

"His father?", Darren repeated, subconsciously wondering about the odd kind of emphasis she'd put on that word and at the same time racking his brain about what he knew about that person. "Lynch Webber, right? Wasn't he involved in that meltdown at the Green Apple Splat factory back in the 90s?"

Veronica shifted a little, something like disgust in her tone. "So to speak. It's a long story."

"I've got time."

"No, Darren", she said, stern now. Pulling away from him and assuming a pose that, combined with her dark green eyes staring at him, sent chills down his spine. The movie villain association appeared in his mind again, but he pushed it aside immediately. This was still Veronica, after all. His high school friend. His _girlfriend_ , at one point in time.

Although her intense gaze really was kind of unsettling. 

"How much do you remember?", she asked him now. "About the things I used to tell you about?"

 _Is there a wrong answer?_ , Darren couldn't help but wonder as he somehow managed to keep up the eye contact. But he had no idea what the _right_ one was either, so he settled for being honest. "It's strange", he admitted, yet somehow, he got the feeling she'd understand. "I never really thought about any of it in all these years. But now that I'm back here, at this school… it's all coming back. The stuff with the yearbooks and principals and 1945, all those things that seem so hard to overlook all of a sudden."

Veronica nodded, slowly. Her voice was suddenly full of something he could only describe as repressed fury. "You know what my plan was after we graduated. To start working for MWF, the company I'd suspected to be behind everything - to find out what was really going on. To stop them from the inside, eventually."

Darren, too, found himself nodding. His mouth was starting to go dry. "And?"

"And that's exactly what I did." Veronica went back to leaning against the desk, still with that chilling tone in her voice. But she couldn't fool him, he could see one of her hands grabbing the table's edge as if to support herself. More mentally than physically, he guessed. "I've been working my way up ever since we parted ways so many years ago. Gaining their trust. Learning their secrets. Both those they revealed to me on their own and those I uncovered behind their backs." She hadn't looked at him as she'd said those words, but now she did. Her eyes, once again, carried a cold that made him shiver. "I can't say I have all the answers by now. But I have plenty. More than you could handle learning about today."

"I -", Darren started, then cut himself off because he realized he had no idea what to say. But as he thought about her words, something occurred to him. "You became vice principal to be at the center of everything - of everything all of this is about. So you must know that history's repeating itself again, with all these kids of people that used to be our classmates. Including my son."

"Becoming vice principal wasn't entirely my choice", Veronica told him, although she didn't give him more of an explanation. Instead, she continued, "But yes, I know Magnus. He's a lot like you… naturally."

"Yeah, naturally. Just like everyone else in the yearbooks, right? There's something going on, and I assume you know what it is." Darren could hear his voice getting louder, angrier, as all the stuff he'd been confronted with today threatened to overwhelm him. But he knew that getting angry wasn't going to do either of them any good, so he paused, frowned, took a deep breath. "Please, Nica. If it's affecting my son, I need to know the truth."

"Darren, I don't know what this will do to you. Nobody is supposed to know about this - not even me. That's how big of a deal it is."

"And that's why I need to know", he countered, forcing himself to keep sounding calm. "Why would you have brought me here if you hadn't planned on telling me anything? I don't need - don't _want_ \- to know everything. Just what's going on with our three generations."

Veronica sighed. "That's the thing. It's all connected." She fell silent for a moment, seemingly having an argument with herself inside her head, and eventually, she stepped away from the desk and sat down on one of the chairs meant for students. The look in her eyes meant "Well, you'd better sit down for this", easily enough, so Darren tried pushing his horrible gut feelings aside and joined her.

"I'm ready", he wanted to tell her, but they'd both know he was lying. So instead, all he said was, "Okay."

It took her another deep breath to get started. "Remember our old principal? Mr Wurst? If you look at the yearbooks, you'll see that he's apparently been running this school for almost seventy years. From - you guessed it - just a single year after 1945, all the way until a few months ago."

Darren nodded. He'd heard about that last part. But he didn't reply, he just let her keep going.

And she did.

"It really was all the same person - sort of. The real Art Wurst died in 1957, but he was - how do I put it - outlived by his creations. Because he'd invented something, you see. Back in, well. 1945."

He found himself gulping after all. "What was it?"

Veronica made a certain face at him. The "I warned you" face. "A way to clone people", she said.

"Clone - what?" All Darren could do was stare at her. "You're kidding, right?"

Of course she wasn't. They both knew that. "That invention was a breakthrough for his company - Mann, _Wurst_ , and Finnwich", she continued without reacting to his question. "And soon, his clones weren't the only ones anymore. Because they also, essentially, created the teachers of this school, using the genetic material of revolutionary minds such as Benjamin Franklin or Mark Twain."

Darren shook his head, not because he didn't believe her at all but because of how unreal it all sounded. "What for?", he asked, not even Veronica in particular. "What's the point?"

"That's where it really gets top secret", she admitted with a hint of frustration. "The other stuff - the school staff's cloning and all -, that's pretty hard not to find out about when you have a somewhat high rank at MWF. But the actual explanation… that's reserved for the core members, apparently. Those that actually have _Mann_ , _Wurst_ , or _Finnwich_ in their names." She squared her shoulders, sitting up a bit more straight. "Of course, I've been doing some research behind their backs. Finding out more about why both the principal and the teachers of this school have been nothing but various iterations of clones for the last seventy years. I can't tell you much more, but… the gist is that MWF needs their knowledge. Their intelligence. Because apparently, this school is hiding a secret so vast and unfathomable that it takes the minds of cloned super genuises to uncover it."

Darren didn't know what to reply, so he remained silent. All of this… it was like something out of a movie, not something that could actually happen. But he believed Veronica. Of course he did. She wouldn't joke about matters like that - she never had, not even back in school, and now things were a million times more serious. Even the thing with Luke's disappearance was becoming more and more plausible with every word she said. Clearly, these days, Veronica wasn't a teenager playing detective anymore. She was a woman trying to cause the fall of a company that had taken her best friend from her so many years ago.

"What about us?", Darren asked now, his voice choked. He already felt the truth deep in his gut, but he had to hear it from her. "The students?"

Veronica bit her lip, but just for a moment. When she spoke again, she somehow managed to sound awfully indifferent. "Those too, yes. Everyone from the graduation year of 1951, anyway. And their, well, future iterations."

"So you're telling me that Magnus isn't actually my son? That he's…" Darren fell silent, unable to say it out loud. He wasn't even terrified, just… speechless, really. Overwhelmed.

"From what I can tell, there are two kinds of clones", Veronica said, as if that somehow made it all less bizarre. "Those that are direct copies of a person - like the Wursts, or the teachers - from the exact point their DNA was taken, so those clones, upon creation, would also immediately be that age. But since they use that exact set of DNA, those clones are only able to function for a matter of weeks until their structure collapses and another copy is needed."

She didn't give him the time to reply, which was alright with him because there wasn't anything he could have said to begin with. "And then there are the ones that only use the DNA as a guideline of sorts and actually start off as infants, able to grow up like a regular human would, no genetic collapses or reiterations in between. Although the Wursts did make a few alterations along the way to make things at least slightly less obvious. Such as your family's heterochromia skipping your generation." She paused, looking at him in a way that, for the first time, actually carried a hint of understanding. "I told you it's a lot to take in. But I promise, Darren, you aren't in any danger. And neither is your son."

"Can I even call him that anymore?", he couldn't help but ask. "If we're actually -"

"Yes", she cut him off, her expression shifting into something far less sympathetic. "You have to, remember? Nobody is supposed to know about this. Not even me. Not even Ruben and the others. It _has_ to remain a secret, do you understand?"

"But if we tell the others", Darren argued, unable to stop himself from sounding a little desperate. It was just all so much to take in. "You know, with proof and all. Wouldn't that cause an outrage? And stop whatever MWF is trying to do, just the way you wanted?"

Veronica's serious demeanor didn't change; she actually sounded even more frustrated. "If anything, it would just make matters worse. Why do you think Ruben doesn't know, even if he's perfectly fine with everything else MWF is doing? Because it would mess him up mentally. Just like it's messing _you_ up, right now. And maybe - maybe just like it messed up Kenneth, back in the day."

However jumbled Darren's thoughts had been already, hearing those words shattered them into even tinier pieces. For a moment, all of the bizarre implications that clone talk had had were forgotten. "What are you talking about?"

"I did some research in that regard too", Veronica admitted, her voice ever so slightly softer again. "As soon as I found out about the whole cloning thing. Just to see if there was any kind of connection. So I sifted through the Wursts' protocols from after that night… and according to them, Kenneth had a visitor the evening before his death. One who told him about all of this. In any case, those in power really didn't appreciate this very first casualty among the original set of students… so that's why they gave you and Magnus those immediate scholarships. To ensure that you, at least, would stay around."

The more she talked, the more Darren's grip tightened around the frame of the chair he was sitting on. He felt the tears welling up by his eyes as well, no matter how calm he usually managed to be these days when the topic of his father came up. How could he stay calm now, considering what she'd just confronted him with? "Who was that person?", he asked, faintly aware of the barely suppressed emotion in his voice. "That visitor?"

"I don't know", she said, with a weird hesitation that made him doubt those words. "And even if I did - what would you do with that information? Nothing that would help anyone, surely."

"I -" Darren sighed. As usual, she had a point. "No, you're right. I have no idea. But -", he paused, carefully wording everything inside his head, "One more thing, Veronica. If what you're saying is true… then why does everything feel so real? Why do I remember Laura giving birth when…"

"When she didn't?" Veronica looked him right into the eyes. "For the same reason that you didn't recall any of my observations until this building triggered the memories again. Brainwashing."

 _Brainwashing_ , it echoed inside Darren's mind, one of his hands immediately moving up to his temple as if that made anything better. It sure wasn't helping the more and more dizzy feeling that was taking over him, at least.

"Is anything even real at this point?", he managed to ask after several seconds of silence, no matter how close he felt to throwing up.

Her answer wasn't quite what he'd expected.

" _You_ are", Veronica said with honestly flattering conviction, taking his other hand into hers. She still sounded serious, but this time, it felt like a good thing. "Whatever it was that brought you into existence, you _are_ a real person. And so is Magnus. And your feelings for him - and for your father -, they aren't fake either. They aren't there because you were brainwashed. They're all yours."

Darren bit his lip, taking a deep breath and embracing the touch of her hands. The _realness_ of it. "This is insane", he muttered eventually. "How do you live with knowing all of that? Without having it destroy you?"

"Luke", was all she said. "I owe him that much."

They both fell silent after that, sitting in that old classroom of theirs without even moving. Both of them were chasing their own respective thoughts, Darren supposed, and he was still trying to wrap his head around it all when Veronica suddenly stood up again. And not just that, but she took several steps back towards the teacher's desk, not even looking at him as she spoke.

"I shouldn't have told you this, Darren. None of the things I said. Who knows what it's going to do to you."

"I don't know", he admitted, trying to ignore the uneasy feeling he was getting from her actions right now. "But I don't care. I'll figure it out."

"And what if you don't?", she snapped back at him as she stopped in her tracks and spun around, something as jarring as genuine fear in her voice for once. "What if you end up like Kenneth? Or like Luke, even? I can't lose both of you like that."

He stood up as well now, slowly, attempting to still sound calm in spite of how much her words hurt him to hear. But he wasn't going after her, maybe because he could sense that doing so would just trigger another impulsive reaction on her part. "You won't, Nica. I promise. Nobody's going to find out about this."

"That's right. Because I won't let you tell them."

Darren stared at her, speechless, as a certain suspicion dawned on him. "...is that what you're going to do? Brainwash me into forgetting again?"

He'd only meant that last word in relation to what was happening right now, but as he said it out loud, he realized - he was talking about the previous times as well. The things he'd been forced to forget.

And when she winced at his words, he knew hew was right.

"That was you", he said, still too astonished to move closer to her. Too struck by that revelation. "You were the one who made me suppress what you've told me back then."

Veronica nodded, and for the first time, she actually looked like her old self again. Frail and devastated about what she'd had to endure, but ready to face the future all the same. "But only to _protect_ you, Darren."

"To protect _yourself_ ", he countered. Veronica still hadn't moved closer to the desk, but he was starting to get the feeling that if she ended up reaching it, she could somehow brainwash him right then and there if she wanted to. "Look, Nica, I can't blame you for that. Pretending to work for MWF, for this company that's doing so many awful things you can't discuss with anyone - that must be horrible. But that doesn't give you the right to decide whether or not someone else is able to handle that knowledge."

He could tell that his words weren't convincing her, so he added, purposefully not hiding his old affection, "Remember when we were still going out? We wanted to move in together after graduation, and I was so convinced we'd make it that my mother didn't mind moving back down to the rest of her family in Mexico without me, because there wasn't much keeping her here anymore after Kenneth's death. But then we broke up, and stopped talking, and I was all by myself - just some guy who was barely twenty and didn't really have friends or family or a job or… anything, honestly. The years after that were the worst time of my life."

A flicker of shock, of sympathy, appeared on Veronica's face, but it was easy enough to see that she was also wondering why he was telling her all of this. So he continued.

"You know what it was that got me through those years? Through that time I had basically nothing? It was you, Veronica. I don't know if that was a part you wanted me to remember, but… even if you made me forget about Luke and A Nigma's secrets, I didn't forget _you_. Your determination. Your willingness to do whatever it took to achieve your goals, for better or worse. You never gave up no matter what, and I knew that you wouldn't have wanted me to do that either."

His voice cracked ever so slightly, but he knew he had to keep going. "I owe you my life, Veronica. Even today, I would trust you with it. And all I'm asking of you now is to do the same."

With that, Darren fell silent, and Veronica, too, regarded him without a word. Seconds passed, seconds in which he didn't dare say anything more, in which he only watched how the fear and the worry in her expression were slowly replaced by the very same old affection that he'd put into his words just now. Eventually, there even was the hint of a smile appearing on her face as she took not one, but several steps away from the desk again.

"I missed you, Darren", she said, and he couldn't help but mimick her expression.

"I missed you too, Nica."

He stepped over to her after all, but at the same time, she approached him as well, until they pulled each other into a hug they had both needed for a good twenty years. They didn't kiss, of course not, but still, it was in that moment Darren knew that she wasn't going to mess with his mind again. That she trusted him after all.

"I'm not going to tell anyone", he promised her again when they pulled apart.

Veronica nodded, both relief and still a hint of concern in her voice. "I know. But if it gets too hard to handle -"

"Then I'll get back to you, yeah." Darren gave her a crooked smile. "Although I'm pretty used to existential dread these days."

"Just stay safe", she insisted, then glanced towards the door as her voice shifted into something far less serious. "So what do you think? Ready to pay our old classmates another visit?"

Darren grimaced at the reminder. "I told Ace I'd only be gone for a moment."

That made Veronica chuckle, a sound he hadn't heard in far too many years. "We'll probably stir up some rumors if we show up together like this. I'm sure they haven't forgotten."

"Then that's their problem, not ours", Darren decided. He, too, couldn't help but be amused. "I for one have grown out of high school drama ages ago."

"Bold claim after what I told you today", she put in. "I'm still involved in a fair amount of that drama these days. Even if its nature is far from the stuff we had to deal with back then."

"True enough", he admitted, briefly squeezing her hand in reassurance before watching her unlock the classroom's door again. He took another glance around the place, then followed her back into the hallway, where soon enough, he could hear the voices of his former classmates in the gym once more. From the sound of it, Dash was currently having some sort of loud, heated argument with who used to be his co-host on the school news.

Darren exchanged a semi-exasperated glance with Veronica, and not a memory, but a song resurfaced inside his head.

"High school never ends, does it", he said.

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, cloning. Told you it's a fun topic.
> 
> A little more detail regarding VPV and Luke: We know from ep 15 that VPV was classmates with Ace and Dash, and Lynch's canon birth year of 1934 matches up perfectly with when the grandparents would've been at A Nigma. Easy to imagine that he was part of that original batch and wound up with a clone kid as well... so then, when VPV starts working at MWF (where, because of the high school stuff, everyone is already kind of aware that she's not to be trusted, oops), they might just have quarantined Lynch in the Splat factory all those years to provide her with a twisted surprise a couple years down the line. Buuut the whole factory meltdown is its own complicated theory/topic altogether, so I'll save that for another time.
> 
> Also, as evidenced by the show several times, MWF has already developed brainwashing anyway, so VPV's work at A Nigma is definitely also just them messing around with her some more (including Barrage, who totally just replaced Wurst as the principal to be a foil for her - why else would a cyborg run for this kinda job? Though he definitely was also hacked/brainwashed into the matter, at least a little bit). And in ep 33, we learn that VPV's been doing some Pyramid research by herself that she actually hid from the rest of MWF, so she's definitely not exactly chummy with them. Just a shame that her whole plan was kind of doomed from the start... but hey, Luke is still stuck at Coral Grove, so that makes for an interesting reunion after season two. And for two very interesting allies for Lee in my hypothetical season five :')
> 
> The songs mentioned in this fic are by the band Bowling for Soup btw. Good stuff.


End file.
